Premier League needs a DOGE says Raine Man; Brilliant Maps; Women's T20 World Cup launches big; 14 year old becomes Next Big Thing; How much entertainment can sport take?; Baller balls; Fjortoft & Son
Overthinking the sports business, for money
How much entertainment can sport take?
That’s the title of our session at the Olympic Museum in Lausanne on May 13th. Come say hello if you’re there.
Buy a ticket here.
Raine: Premier League clubs need a DOGE
Popped in to the Oval on Tuesday for SportsPro Live.
Had time to gently ambush a session on investment featuring Danny Townsend (SURJ), Jason Schwetter (Raine Group) and Nathan Homer (Neom).
Danny Townsend’s answer to my LIV Golf question was along the lines of ‘disruption is never always popular’ and it got Saudi taken seriously. Both of which are probably true answers to a different question. But, because I know Danny and Nathan well, I only posted the question to wind them up.
That second question from Anonymous however, got a really interesting answer from Jason Schwetter of Raine Group, the go-to go-between for all things football finance these days.
In response to why are Premier League teams worth billions given there’s no path to profit, he was only half joking when he referenced Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.
“Premier League clubs need a DOGE“
So there it is.
It’s about cost control.
A range of phrases can be inserted, depending on the price point of the speaker, ranging from p/e speak, ‘Operational efficiencies’ to ‘Cut your cloth accordingly’ which was how my Auntie Joyce would describe the management skills of the average football CEO.
While we’re at it, Danny Townsend said something intriguing about the role of sport when building cities in the desert: ‘You can’t build infrastructure based on renting rights’.
Breaking: Podcasts are a great marketing platform
From my seat in the stands it was great to hear the conversation about podcasts with Robbie Lyle of Arsenal Fan TV fame and Tony Pastor, the co-founder of Goalhanger, the Gary Lineker Rest Is History / Entertainment/ Money /Sport /Spying /Football empire.
A couple of data points were dropped.
41 minutes average listen on The Rest Is Football, which delivers heavily on the time spent data point which is the scroll metric du jour.
The football audience is 92% male, Guinness is the sponsor and Lineker won’t take gambling brands, so a large amount of money is left on the table, according to Pastor.
Pods against AI Slop
After six years of podcasting I’ve found that it creates a human connection that’s rare when put against other forms of media. When I meet listeners IRL, they - usually, often - greet me warmly. There’s an assumed intimacy on their part, which is lovely to be the beneficiary of. This wasn’t the case when I made a living entirely via the written word.
That depth of audience engagement doesn’t easily translate to spreadsheets and the scale-focused digital advertising system, but I’d argue it has more enduring value than the fleeting impressions that have propped up much of digital media.
The coming tsunami of crap from AI will disproportionately affect text-based content. The inevitable humanist reaction to this onslaught of synthetic content should benefit podcasting.
File under, he would say that wouldn’t he, but I think it might also be true.
Why I love maps
We’re all just looking for a map, really. That’s pretty much what we’re doing isn’t it, a way of making sense of the world, whether that world be the actual world, or the business that is sport.
One of the things I miss most from ‘old Twitter’ is @BrilliantMaps, an account that managed to upturn my world view on a daily basis, often encouraging me to take a longer view and make me more optimistic as a result. That’s not a bad day’s work imho.
I went to Brilliant Maps this week, as we all pondered the story of the week in cricket, which is Vaibhav Suryavanshi, the 14 year old IPL centurion.
India is now the world’s most populous country with over 1.46 billion people. That number is almost too big to understand so here’s another way to look at it. It has more people than all of the countries listed above combined.
Then throw in this chart (thanks to Mark Thompson), and you get a picture emerging that seems to talk to the future of cricket globally.
The IPL is where money, talent and opportunity collide.
Story Archetypes and Sportsbiz Cliches
Vaibhav Suryavanshi is now The Next Big Thing.
Very quickly a call goes out asking, ‘What’s he worth?’, which is a story that takes The Next Big Thing and adds the faux certainty of ‘data’.
There are three basic rules to follow when writing a What’s He Worth story:
1.The number must be divisible by 10. As in ‘Luke Littler/Emma Raducanu set to rake in £40million from brand deals’. If your answer is £37.4million, you better have some facts to back it up (See also UP Rule: The number’s always wrong).
2.There is no right or wrong answer. The figure just has to be massive. Newspapers (and the thread merchants and Linkedin gurus that copy them) report business in the same way they report sport: up/down/heroes/villains. The size of the sponsorship rights fee is the business editor’s way of keeping score - see also, Rich Lists.
3. The number must reflect the direction of travel. The Next Big Thing’s alter ego, which is The Sponsor Exodus, a story which lies in wait for the unwary young starlet. This sees something bad happening and brands flee the scene. Search Tiger Woods and a fire hydrant for more details.
4. Good People Around Him. To add jeopardy to The Next Big Thing (TNBT), the story must suggest that vast riches will test the moral fibre of both TNBT and the backroom team. The words used to describe the entourage are coded, often on class lines. ‘Agent’ is a shiny suited snake out to exploit TNBT for all he or she’s worth. By comparison, ‘Management team’ suggests the safe hands of the stolid professional classes. If the young star is managed by a family member it opens the door to accusations of naivety, unless they are sharp elbowed parents (middle class).
From a piece on Luke Littler around the time of his World Darts win:
Lord’s like you’ve not seen it before
I’m just back from cricket HQ after the year to go launch event for the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup this morning.
Great to see so many of the UP podcast alumni there.
An eloquent, wise and emotionally charged speech from Beth Barrett Wild set the tone. Malala Yousafzai was extraordinary.
Loads to discuss, and we’ll get in to the detail at a later point. But the flame has been lit.
They even let me on the pitch.
Welcome to The Fussball Show
Jan and Markus Fjortoft launched an excellent addition to the football YouTube landscape, with a show on German football, in English. Axel Hellmann, Eintracht Frankfurt CEO was the guest this week.
I’m also liking Gundeep Anand’s new Substack,
:The Name Says “Ballers” — But Where Are the Ballers?
Let’s keep it real:
What’s being shown isn’t street football.
Not in rhythm. Not in chaos. Not in energy.
This isn’t cage-built talent.
It’s closer to a broadcasted five-a-side tournament — part Powerleague, part performance.
That’s not a dig.
It’s just clarity.
Because when you call something the Ballers League,
but the players feel more like mates-of-the-celebs than killers-from-the-block,
you risk misrepresenting the real scene.